*Spoiler Alert!*
After Hanna Baker (Katherine Langford) told her story, it’s time for those involved to expose their versions. The second season of 13 Reasons Why consists of what happens after a suicide and how her parents, friends and community that Hanna belonged to are handling the situation.
In the first season, each episode exposed a reason for Hanna to kill herself. In the second season, each episode consists of a testimony that each one of them gives in the lawsuit – which the Bakers moved against the Liberty High School, by their negligence when dealing with the subjects with the students. So each episode shows the vision of the characters, and gradually reveal new facts about Hannah.
In addition to exploring the main character, the second season shows deeply the effects that the tapes have on the characters, concomitantly problems such as a “failed” suicide, bullying, sexual harassment and rape.
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Recoveries
Alex (Miles Heizer) guilty of Hanna’s death attempts to kill himself in the first season. On second season, he faces the psychological and physical consequences of his action. His trial is painful and brings a side of suicide shortly aborted. Jessica (Alishia Boe) has also a pain process of recovery, which is also not addressed. On season two, she shows how difficult is to get over a rape: she has problems with confidence, relationships and with her own body, which are gradually confronted.
Another character that have a hard recovery is Justin (Brandon Flynn), that feels guilty for Jessica’s rape. He runs away, becomes a beggar and an addicted to heroin. His recovery, besides the heroin (that is addressed in a very realistic way by the series), is leave all this guilt that he feels for helped his former best friend.
The bullying is discussed in several characters, especially Tayler (Devin Druid), however he didn’t start a process of recovery. In his case, the bullying was getting stronger, and he wants to rebut all the time and not working solutions to the issue, which gives us a loophole for a possible third season.
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Clay and the Polaroids
After listening to the tapes, Clay (Dylan Minneti) is stunned: he thinks it’s his duty to do justice for Hannah. That’s when the Polaroids become part of the story, lefting clues about the rapes to further trigger that feeling of justice.
So, with the judgment’s revelations and the Polaroids, Clay has more difficulty to let Hannah definitely go. He wants fix everything, thinking that this will take Hanna off his mind, but the process will be much more complicated and difficult than that.
Image Source: IMDB
Prejudice
Controversial issues continue to be addressed in this season. Chauvinism is very current on the history. They show how a lot of boys, especially athletes, treat girls. In addition to the boys’ unequal view of girls, the series points out how society sees a teenage woman, how much they are discredited – especially when they are charged with rape. Jessica’s case is even more complicated, since she is a black woman fighting a straight white rich guy. In this case, we have the sexism mixed with racism, what leeds Jessica to be insecure to continue the denunciation’s process against Brice (Justin Prentice).
Image Source: CDE
Realistic scenes
In the first season, the series received many critics due to its strong scenes, like the one of Hanna committing suicide – that could serve as trigger for many young people. Even with this repercussion, the second season still remains with its commitment to reality, and spares no details when reporting scenes extremely violent, not recommended for sensitive people. Of course we are talking about the bullying scenes with Tyler – especially the last one, on the last episode. The scenes shows bullying and sexual harassment that boys do with boys, are very realistic and made to shock those who watch.
To handle these scenes and guide the young people that are watching the TV series, Netflix added another special additional episode, aka Behind the Reasons. In a chat with the cast, producers, writers, and professionals of the areas, some scenes and subjects are discussed, always explaining that the series tries to show the reality, and not what should be done. This is a very important episode that everyone who watched 13 Reasons Why should watch.